


close to knowing

by o666666



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Kitsunegari, emily au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-02-27 05:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 8,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18732556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o666666/pseuds/o666666
Summary: “Why did you sleep over in mommy’s room?”Emily leans against the doorframe as she drinks, hip propped on the wood, the toes of her right foot fiddling with the loose sock on her left, bidding it “hello” and contributing to a posture at once shy, curious, apathetic—like the smallest little Dana Scully he’s ever seen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Vignettes about Mulder and Emily, and Mulder and Scully, in (mostly) nonchronological order.

_Emily brings Mulder for show-and-tell_

Emily sways from foot to foot at the front of her classroom, biting her lip. “Hi,” she announces herself. “Um, this is my Mulder. And this is his fish.”

She points to her Mulder, who sits in a chair about a foot and a half off the ground, tall knees bent at a comical angle, with a fishbowl in his lap. Scully focuses her video camera and zooms in. He waves.

“Actually Mulder has a lot more fish, but this one is Dorothy and she is my favorite, because sometimes I have to sleep over his house, and we watch _The Wizard of Oz_ , and Dorothy is my favorite. And sometimes Mulder gets scared of the witch but um, it’s still a good movie because sometimes being scared is fun.”

Emily blushes, having realized that the entire room is watching and listening. Scully gives her a thumbs up.

“Mulder is… really tall and dresses fancy, and his ties are great for when he’s a pirate and I’m the good guy, and we have to keep sweat out of our eyes to tussle. Mulder is really good at games and making up games even though a lot of the time we make a mess and I’m supposed to clean it up by myself and he still helps me.”

She looks over at Mulder after that, and he winks.

“I know Mulder because he and my mom are partners which means best friends at work and real best friends. They work at the Federal… um, the FBI which is police but for the whole United States. They are _reeeeeeally_ smart and people call them when they get into trouble.”

“Mulder can also remember anything you tell him except the right kind of milk to get from the store. He got me these really cool sneakers for my birthday”—Emily stomps, and her shoes light up—“so I can see in the dark. And one time when it snowed he made one _hun_ dred pancakes.”

“Mulder is really great at stories too even though sometimes he changes parts to see if I’m awake. He’s really strong. Like, he can pick up my mom if he has to. Which is why we always feel safe with Mulder if we’re worried about a bad guy because he loves us a lot. Like when I fall asleep early, he carries me to my room, and when my mom falls asleep early, he carries her to _her_ room, and sometimes we all have sleepovers in there and Mulder puts a flashlight under his chin so he looks like a monster but we know it’s just him.”

From the mouths of babes. Mulder takes a long blink. Scully pats her red cheeks with her free hand. “ _Oh my God_ ,” she mouths, and he shrugs.

“Anyway.” Emily smiles at her increasingly humiliated subject. She remembers what Dana told her about Mulder on the first day they met. “Mulder is the best because he will always help you and support you no matter what, even if it’s really hard and takes a lot of effort. There are fairweather friends and all the time friends and Mulder is my best friend all the time.”

Emily looks around.

“So if you ever have a problem you can call him and his phone number is 703-555-6316.”

All the grown ups laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Emily listen to Elvis.

_It’s dark_

Mulder feels little feet wedging under his legs.

“Em?” He props himself up on one arm and finds her on the opposite end of the couch, knees tucked up under nightgown, which is really one of his shirts. She’s wearing these tiny purple leggings. He swings his legs around to make some room but Emily remains curled in her corner, regarding him with wide Scully eyes.

“Hey,” he whispers, “you okay?”

She shrugs. With the effort to keep her chin from trembling, her bottom lip sticks out pitifully—cartoonishly, even. He remembers that vulnerable young things are evolutionarily irresistible. It is his biological imperative, and hers, that he loves this kid so fiercely.

Emily looks to Mulder’s bedroom—hers, for the night—and back. “It’s _dark_ ,” she says, and her voice hitches. The tiniest, littlest voice. She starts to cry and it disarms him immediately.

“Hey, hey, hold on one second.” He flicks on the desk lamp and sits closer to Emily upon his return, his arm along the back of the couch. He casts a long, hulking shadow on the wall.

“It’s alright.” He brushes her hair away from her sticky cheeks with his fingers, leans low. “We can leave a light on.” He thumbs her tears away. “No big deal.”

“I need a _cuddle_ ,” Emily weeps, and Mulder remembers last weekend, when she skinned her knee at the playground.

_Alright_ , Scully had told her, plopping Em in her lap and kissing her temple. She’d poured a little water over the bloodied knee and patted it dry with the hem of her t-shirt. She’d smoothed a Band Aid on top and squeezed her tight. _You just needed a little cuddle._

“Oh, _Em_ ,” he chuckles, and lifts her by the armpits to sit across his lap. She hugs him around the neck and sobs. He pats her back. “Come on. Don’t cry, honey. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

“I’m _scared_.”

“Baby, you don’t have to be scared. There’s nothing to be scared of. We’re just hangin’ out, okay? We’re just safe in my apartment.”

Emily sniffles.

“You miss your house, huh?” He imagines that Emily’s little white bed and warm nightlight are far more soothing than his big, messy bedroom and scratchy old blanket.

Emily nods. “I want Mommy.”

“I know.” He bounces her a little. “I know she wants you too. But Mommy’s so smart that the government flew her out to California to _consult_.”

“I _miss_ her,” Emily pleads, like Mulder might be hiding her someplace.

He makes a thinking face. “Do you know what I do when I miss Dana?”

Emily shifts in his lap, poking him in the stomach with her toes in the process. “Call her?” She bats her eyelashes hopefully.

And, well, yes. But—he checks the clock—it’s almost two. He’d like Scully to think him capable of putting the baby to bed. Her baby. Just… for the record. If she’s keeping one.

“Sometimes,” he admits, and squeezes one of Em’s little feet. She giggles and flicks him off. “But sometimes it works if I just imagine what she’s doing. She’s probably… all cozied up, sleeping in her big hotel, huh?”

“But I _need_ her,” Emily protests. She points warily towards Mulder’s bedroom. “I don’t _wanna_ go back in there.”

“Alright,” Mulder shushes. “I know what we need. One second.” He slides out from underneath his little barnacle, lopes to CD shelf, and holds his selection out to Emily.

“Em,” he tells her, “this is The King.”

Em swallows.

He slips the CD into the stereo.

He crouches in front of the couch, motions with his head for Emily to lie down. He palms her warm skull, the tangles in her fine hair. She closes her eyes. It feels nice.

“Sometimes when I get lonely,” he whispers, “and the apartment seems big and empty I… this one time me and your mom were stuck out in the forest and she sang to me.”

Emily grins the shit-eating grin of someone very familiar with Scully’s singing voice.

“And, I mean, Elvis is no Scully, but—he helps me out sometimes, at night. Keeps me company.”

_Love me tender, love me sweet_ , says Elvis. _Never let me go._

“Will _you_ keep me company?” Emily asks.

Mulder nods. “You stretch out,” he tells her, settling in and acquainting his ass, then his back, with the patch of floor between the couch and coffee table. “I’ll be right here.”

“’kay,” Emily yawns. “Thanks, Mulder.”

He stares up at the ceiling. Emily reaches down to pat his hair and, unseeing, bops his nose.

_You have made my life complete_ , says Elvis. _And I love you so._

 


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanksgiving_

Emily is picking at her turkey. Scully has been quietly imploring her to eat before her food gets cold for fifteen minutes, give or take. She nods to Emily’s plate and Emily gives her a pitiful pout: _You said Mulder might come._

Mulder has not come, at least not yet. Mulder is visiting the Redwood Forest this Thanksgiving. This long third weekend in November. _If you get bored_ , Scully reminded him in a low voice, _and you want to come home early, we’ll be at my mother’s._

_I’ll keep that in mind_ , he’d said.

And Scully had told Emily: _He knows he’s invited, honey. But his flight home isn’t until Saturday, okay? So let’s just plan to see him then._

But at four, Emily lacks Scully’s pragmatism. If there is a chance Mulder should arrive to her grandmother’s dining room, she would like to save some of her turkey for him. She thinks he might sneak her the marshmallows from the top of his sweet potato casserole.

Earlier today her cousin Benjamin and Uncle Charlie, Benjamin’s daddy, played a little football in the yard. Emily wasn’t very good at throwing the ball. It didn’t spin when she tossed it; it was heavy and landed on the brown grass with a thud. Benjamin was no good either, but when Uncle Charlie tried to teach them both, Emily became unspeakably sad, though she could not think why, or even articulate it. There was a deep loneliness as Uncle Charlie placed her fingers properly on the football laces, an awkwardness because they were almost strangers, and Emily blushed and became shy. Though it abates as she grows, Emily becomes anxious when displaced from her cocoon.

She leans into her mother’s side miserably, picking at the pills on the belly of Scully’s cashmere sweater. Scully pets Emily’s hair.

“Somebody’s a little overtired, huh?” Tara says sympathetically across the table to Scully, and before Scully can answer—

The crunch of tires on gravel. Emily shoots upright, runs to the window.

Mulder’s sedan powers down in the driveway.

“He’s HERE!” she shrieks, “HE’S HERE!”

Running back to the dining room, skidding to a halt in stocking feet: “HE’S _HERE!_ ”

And hopping to Scully, leaning on her knees with both hands to bounce even higher: “Mommy, Mulder is _here_ , he’s here!”

“Well, go get him,” Scully laughs, shaking her head.

Emily reaches the door before Mulder and he catches her halfway down the front steps when she leaps into his arms. His sweater smells spicy and woodsy like always. “You’re here,” she tells the collar of his shirt, pressing her nose to it. He rubs her back.

“Hi Em.” He looks up, sees Scully floating near. “Anybody miss me?”

Scully grins. “Come sit,” she tells him, and guides him to the dining room. There is an empty chair next to hers. Mulder—together with his Emily barnacle—sits. “I’ll get you a plate,” Scully says.

He catches her wrist before she walks to the kitchen, reels her in for a quick peck. Emily hides her face in Mulder’s neck, clinging tighter.

“Thank you for saving me a place, Mrs. Scully,” he says.

“Of course, Fox.”

“Emily,” Scully suggests when she returns with his helping. “Why don’t you let Mulder eat?”

“She’s fine,” Mulder says, and palms Emily’s silky hair. She’s tipped her head onto his shoulder and fiddles with the top button on his shirt, quietly, comfortably disinterested in everyone else.

“They’re in love,” Scully deadpans, resuming her dinner.

Mulder loops his free arm over the back of Scully’s chair and grins. “It’s true.” He cuts a Brussels sprout in half and spears it with his fork, offers the bite to Emily. “You want some of this, baby?”


	4. Chapter 4

_Mulder got cold on the couch_

At six, Mulder rises to pee. Scully’s room is still dark. He finds his boxers on the floor, on her side. She wore them to the kitchen last night, late. She wore them to make a ham sandwich. Sex made her hungry. She ate it on her belly, leaning over him in bed like his bare chest was a plate. She laughed when she brushed the crumbs off.

His woman sleeps with her mouth open, one hand gripping the pillow, curved like a lima bean.

Her bathroom smells like Lysol and the candle she lights for baths. ( _Baths_ , he thinks, as he lifts the toilet seat. _Scully naked_.) He feels very satisfied with himself. _Ah_.

The bathroom door creaks and opens. Mulder jumps. Emily, messy and pajamaed, hangs on the doorknob with one hand and rubs an eye with the other. She yawns. Before she starts paying attention, Mulder turns away and tucks himself back into his boxers, then closes the lid and flushes.

“Can I have water?” Emily’s morning voice is scratchy.

He fills the cup on the sink and hands it to her.

“Why did you sleep over in mommy’s room?”

She leans against the doorframe as she drinks, hip propped on the wood, the toes of her right foot fiddling with the loose sock on her left, bidding it “hello” and contributing to a posture at once shy, curious, apathetic—like the smallest little Dana Scully he’s ever seen.

“Uh—“

“Did you have a scary dream?” she asks, blinking up at him, and wipes her mouth.

“No, Em. I didn’t.”

She hands him the cup. He puts it back on the sink. She chews her lip.

“Was it cold on the couch?”

Mulder nods.

“You’re not wearing any clothes,” Emily observes.

He points to her attire, which is Scully’s _Maine, the way life should be_ t-shirt and _Thursday_ underpants. “That’s a good shirt.”

“I saw Mommy’s boobies in the bath,” she says, and holds out her arms. He picks her up. “Did you just need a kiss?”

“I did,” he admits, and regards them together in the mirror. Emily rubs his cheek.

“You’re hairy.” She puts her head on his shoulder. She remembers her daddy was hairy. Mulder thinks she is his other great love. The girl in the _Thursday_ underpants.

“I look like you,” she says.

He chuckles. (Yesterday afternoon, Scully made grilled cheese. Mulder carried Emily into the kitchen to visit the chef. _Look at you_ , Scully had said. _You both have such pretty green eyes_.) “You don’t wanna look like me, Em.”

Em pulls her cheeks into a clowny smile with both index fingers, then squishes the cartilage of her nose up and down. “Bl _ehhhhhhhh_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skip to Ch. 9 for a direct continuation of this scene.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder, Scully, and Emily celebrate Christmas.

_Christmas Eve 1998_

“Emily, you know I will always protect you.”

“But I don’t _want_ him to come.”

“What if I just told him to knock on the door instead of coming down the chimney, hm? He won’t even come inside. He can just drop your presents off to me.” Scully lifts her voice temptingly, strokes Emily’s wet hair. “I’ll remind him that you were an extra good girl…”

“Can Mulder talk to him?”

“Why not me?” Scully pretends to be offended.

Emily’s chin wobbles. “I want Mulder to come over.” She kicks her rubber ducky with a splash, turning him on his side in the bathwater.

“Baby, you’re fine.” Scully reaches for Emily’s towel and holds it wide, ready to wrap Emily up —“like a taco!” she once exclaimed—and usually make her giggle. “I can protect you just like Mulder. I’ll talk to Santa.”

“No,” Emily insists, sniffing. A fat tear rolls down her baby cheek. “Mulder. I need him.” She climbs into Scully’s arms.

“Alright,” Scully agrees, and presses Emily’s head to her shoulder. She kisses her ear and whispers. “Whatever you need, little girl.”

-

“So,” Scully begins on the phone, staring at her ceiling fan. “I accidentally convinced my child that Santa is a malicious, omnipotent entity who creeps into the home uninvited and is too impolite to use the front door. She’s terrified, Mulder.”

He laughs.

“That’s… that’s an interpretation, Scully. I’m thinking of this one saying. Something about an apple, and a tree?”

“Shut up.”

“It’s sweet,” he offers. “I’m sorry she’s terrified.”

“It’s the season,” Scully sighs.

Last January, when Emily first moved into the apartment, she was painfully quiet but for asking Scully every night if she was _sure_ the two of them would not perish in the bath. _My mommy died in the bath,_ little Emily told her. _It was Christmastime._

Scully blinks it away.

“Plus, it’s not that sweet,” she deadpans. “She doesn’t quite believe that mommy has it all. Apparently you need to come over and protect us.”

Silence.

“I mean, only if you want. You don’t have to. I’m sure I can—I told her I could handle Santa myself. We’ll be okay. She’ll live. But I think…” She sighs. “We’d love it if you spent Christmas with us.”

Mulder wonders if Scully can hear his grin. He feels bad for letting her ramble just to see what she’d say, how she’d qualify this invitation to a Christmas Eve sleepover.

“That’s funny, Scully,” he teases. “I can’t think of anything I’d love more.”

-

The following afternoon, Mulder arrives with a smirk. “Hello, Martha,” he tells Scully, who opens the front door in oven mitts and an apron. “Where’s the little one?”

“She’s in her room. We’re a little _anxious_ ,” Scully whispers. “So we’re coloring.”

“Ah,” he says. “Smells good.” Like cookies. “I’m hiding an American Girl doll in my car.”

Scully shakes her head. “You’re too good to her.”

He shrugs. “I got her the one with glasses so she grows up wanting to be smart.”

“ _Wow_.” Scully raises her eyebrows, blinks. Downturns her mouth as she does when she’s mulling something over. “Oxford, right?”

He tickles her. Simply has to, the little tease. She squeals and swats him with the dish towel.

-

Scully is a traditionalist, so dinner is fish, visage and all. Emily looks her meal in the eyes and makes a face. Before Scully can see, Mulder quiets her with a finger to his lips.

“What are you two doing over there?” Scully, suspicious as ever, fixes them with an eyebrow.

When Emily takes a trepidatious bite, Mulder winks. When she says “Thank you, Mommy,” he shoots her a thumbs-up. Good girl.

-

They play a round of Go Fish on the living room carpet, the fire blazing behind them. Scully lit the fire. When Mulder admitted he was too afraid to do it himself, Emily kissed him on the cheek. “It’s okay,” she reminded him, patting him where he was scratchy. “Sometimes everybody is afraid. But don’t worry. We’ve got you.”

He shook his head at Scully. _This_ _kid_.

Emily does not win at cards because she only wants to hoard the red ones.

-

“Mommy got you a present,” Emily teases. She is stretched across the sofa in sparkly red tights, legs crossed at the ankle.

(Scully’s present is a framed photo of Emily on Mulder’s shoulders that October. They’d gone to the pumpkin patch. It was Mulder’s birthday. In the picture, Emily wears a fleece hat with rainbow stripes. She covers Mulder’s eyes with the matching scarf. His nose looks smushed. He’s got a hand on Emily’s back, the other around her booted ankle. He’s grinning. Scully wrote the month and year on the back in neat cursive— _October 1998_ —like there will be many more months and years. Like it is imperative to specify during which October Emily wore the rainbow fleece to the pumpkin patch, for there will be others. When Mulder opens this present in the morning, he will kiss Scully soundly on the lips.)

“So did Emily.” Scully regards them knowingly from the armchair.

“You _did?_ ” Mulder squeezes Emily’s foot. “Em, you didn’t have to. You’re the best.”

Emily blushes. Beams.

Scully wonders about the genetic phenomenon by which Fox Mulder can render all Scully women bashful and shy.

“Can he open it?” Emily asks Scully, sitting up.

“Yeah Scully,” Mulder parrots, pulling Emily into his lap, bouncing her on his knee. “Can he open it?”

In fact there is nothing to open. Emily skitters to and returns from her bedroom a moment later with something delicate in her palms. She drops it in Mulder’s open hand and speaks quickly, standing on one foot, stepping on it with the other. “We made these at school and—and Joshua C. made two because his mommy and daddy got divorked and they live in different houses and, um.” She chews her lip. Looks at him with her mother’s big, expectant eyes. “I made two.”

Mulder looks at the fragile ornament in his big hand. Emily’s school picture is framed by two dimples of an egg carton, colored blue.

“The other one is over there,” Emily whispers, unsettled by the silence, and points to the Christmas tree where a similar red ornament hangs, boasting her picture.

“Come here,” Mulder scratches, and pulls her close. He closes his eyes. They hold on tight.

“Love you,” he tells her warm head.

“Love you,” Emily squeaks, and Scully gives them a minute.

-

“Em, you still scared of Santa?”

Em is in a sugar coma on Scully’s lap, rallying for the Vera Ellen scenes in _White Christmas_ —and, earlier, for Mulder to sing “Sisters” in a high, silly voice. He bounces a piece of popcorn off her cheek. Scully glares, performatively. Mulder slides his fingers across the couch to squeeze hers. They clasp hands. Scully smiles a secret smile in the blue dark.

“No,” Emily informs him primly. She does not bother to lift her head from Scully’s shoulder.

“Tell Mulder thank you for staying,” Scully reminds, before Emily falls asleep.

“Thanks Mulder.” Emily nuzzles the collar of Scully’s silk pajamas. “Come cuddle us.”

-

Mulder snores on the couch. Scully had moved Emily to her own bed hours ago. But her bedroom feels large and lonely, like she is a girl and Melissa is spending the night at a friend’s house, and she is lost without her conspirator. She must wake Emily up, she realizes. She must give her her gift right now.

-

“ _Emily_.”

“Mommy?” Emily’s fine hair is staticky, sticking up straight at her crown. She rubs an eye, looks up at Scully from her pillow.

“Hi,” Scully whispers. “Can you scoot over?”

Emily nods, serious. Scully climbs in to her tiny bed.

“Mommy, why are you awake?”

Scully shrugs. “I missed you.”

“I love you.” Emily puts her head on Scully’s shoulder.

“I love you so much, honey,” Scully whispers. “Do you want your present?”

“Is it morning?”

Her baby.

Scully smiles. “It’s morning.” She kisses Emily’s nose. “It will be morning soon. This is your present from me, not Santa.”

“Oh.”

Scully retrieves a jewelry box from Emily’s nightstand, places it between them on the pillow.

“Is this fancy?” Emily whispers.

Scully shrugs. “Open it.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, baby.” Scully fixes Em’s hair, tucks it gently behind her ear.

Emily opens the box. Emily gasps. Emily looks up at her mother. “It’s yours,” she says.

“No, see?” Scully shows Emily her cross. “It’s yours. But it looks like mine. My mother gave it to me for Christmas, and to my sister.”

“Were you a little girl?”

Scully nods.

“Can I wear it?”

“Not to sleep.”

“Just for one minute?”

“Okay.” They sit up together. “Just for one minute.”


	6. Chapter 6

_What about Diana?_

Coincidentally, Scully stands to leave as soon as Diana steps into their office, two quick knocks on the open door preceding her.

“Diana,” Mulder says, by way of greeting.

“Excuse me,” Scully says. “I’m late to pick up my daughter. Girl Scouts.” She threads her arm through a sleeve and drops her coat onto one shoulder, then the other. Frees her hair from the collar, rolls her eyes. Then she is gone, clack clack clack down the hall.

Diana fashions a wry smile, shuddering. “ _Kids_ ,” she says, not unkindly, but as though having one might seem a horror—or comedy—to them both. They used to joke like that when a baby cried at their Friday night restaurant, or on the little planes they took to the Vineyard.

Mulder shrugs. “Emily’s great.”

He smiles, despite himself.

“She’s… she’s already so strong and tall. She’s four. She um, she just got one of those big-kid booster seats that just makes you tall enough for the seatbelt. Like a, um. A really expensive phonebook. So the other day she gets in my car, and she’s all puffed up, feeling like one of the grown ups in her new seat, and she goes”—He puts on Emily’s dry, squeaky voice—“‘ _Hey Mulder, does this seat_ reclounge _?_ ’”

Diana huffs an uncomfortable little laugh. Mulder feels self-conscious, and when he looks up she is regarding him with faraway eyes, like she is remembering the lyrics to an old song a little wrong, or he is a familiar stranger.

“ _Reclounge_ ,” Diana repeats. “She’s smart. That’s sweet.”

He shifts in his seat, a little embarrassed. “Her layup needs work,” he says, more hoarsely than he intended. “But she’ll get it.”

Diana nods.

“Did you, um.” He begins to move the papers on his desk for no particular reason. “What can I, uh… do you for?”

Diana sniffs, shaking her head. “You know what?” she laughs, backing away. “It’s the funniest thing, but I…” A watery exhale. “I can’t remember.”

She blinks, bashful. Shrugs. And walks out the door.

 


	7. Chapter 7 pt. i

_Emily gets the flu_

When Mulder gets to the ER, his ears are ringing.

He remembers the nature walk they took in Rock Creek Park this weekend. Scully packed a big unnecessary tote bag of Emily’s things—sunscreen, a peanut butter sandwich, water, the first aid kit, a change of clothes—and he’d carried it dutifully to and from the car. He’d picked Emily up to point out a woodpecker, a red cardinal. A big blue jay. He’d taken a picture of her and Scully on Boulder Bridge. They wore matching sunglasses. As he left their apartment after pizza, when Emily said goodnight, she’d given him a kiss on the cheek. Scully’s eyes looked soft, like maybe she wanted to kiss him too.

Things have been—they are so good.

“Emily Scully?”

The woman at the front desk regards a clipboard, the computer screen, then him.

“I’m—they’re waiting for me. Her mother’s my partner.” He appreciates how ambiguous this sentence is. “Please, could you—“

“They’re in 12,” she says, and points behind him to a row of curtained-off beds. “Write your name on the sign-in sheet.”

He scribbles something, he thinks.

He spies a pair of high heels in the six inches of space beneath the third curtain on the left. Scully’s ankles are small. Maybe his hand is as big as her foot.

_What if she’s crying_ , he thinks, _or Emily’s crying,_ or no one is crying because the news is shocking, because there is indeed news, and the news is bad.

_Mulder, it’s me_ , the voicemail had said, _I’m just getting to the ER with Emily._

A smaller voice, in the background: _S’that Mulder?_

Then: _She’s running a high fever. We’re fine. I have to go—I’m sorry, it’s loud in here. I have to go. Let me know when you get this. We’re all fine._

But Scully sounded worried, barely contained, tightly wound. She was not fine. She was afraid. He could never mistake how Scully sounds when she comes to him, afraid.

And his—and Emily. Scully and Emily in their matching sunglasses. Emily and her art and her prim fascinations, how she brushes his hair very gently in front of the television—him on the floor and she on the sofa—and pats his cheeks with Scully’s blush, appraising him “Bea- _u_ tiful!” with a satisfied clap. What if _—_

If something has happened to Emily, and Emily is sick again, he has to tell her—

She can’t not know—

He falters as his body remembers the old hurt of having lost Samantha and the whole sweet world of her mind. (Bea- _u_ tiful!)

He thinks, _I need my little girl._ And stifles a sob.

“Mulder?”

Scully pulls back the curtain. She, too, had spied him by his shoes on the linoleum.

“Hey,” he croaks, hand to her bicep—soothing—by instinct. He scans the room behind her. Emily is asleep, small in the big bed, hair sweat-stuck to her temples. Stress blooms immediate inside his chest, ricochets, becomes the trauma of a long-ago Emily in the San Diego hospital—becomes the trauma of loving all his life against imminent loss, inevitable doom. He sobs again, wipes his eyes roughly with his sleeve. “Sorry.”

Scully gapes.

“I just—“ he sniffs. “This is really hard. To see her like this.” His throat becomes too tight to speak. He covers his face with his hands, embarrassed. _You ass_ , he thinks. _Scully doesn’t need to see you bawling._

“Mulder? What’s wrong?” Scully is tugging his hands away, feeling his forehead.

“I’m _sorry_ ,” he cries pathetically. “I’m sorry, I’m just, I don’t what I’d do if—“

A giggle. She’s giggling?

“Oh, _Mulder_.” Scully is wearing a sympathetic pout. “Emily’s gonna be fine.” She brings his head against her shoulder, kisses it. “She’s going to be just fine.”

He bends to be small in her arms.

“It’s just the flu,” she whispers. Scully pets his hair as she speaks. “Her temperature was 103 when I picked her up at school and it wasn’t breaking in the bathtub. I’m…” she sighs to consider what she is. Silly, maybe. Overprotective. Traumatized. “… neurotic. We’re just getting some fluids.”

He sniffles and squeezes her around the middle. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“I’m sorry.” She pets him so nicely. “I’m so sorry, Mulder.”

“It’s alright,” he squeaks, using his knuckles to clear his eyes. He casts them at Emily. “Can I talk to her?”

“Of course.” Scully squeezes his hand, fixes his hair. She is much more tactile when he needs fixing. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you instead of me.” Scully rolls her eyes at herself, with some effort. “She’s not too happy with me right now.”

At Emily’s bedside, Mulder brushes away her sticky bangs. Emily blinks awake. “Mulder?”

“Hey kid,” he sniffs. “You feeling okay?”

“ _No!_ ” She throws her arms around him. “Mommy made me come here and I was scared.”

“Me too.” He hugs her back, tightly. She crawls into his lap. “But your mom told me you’re gonna be good as new in no time.”

Emily shakes her head, arranging Mulder’s arms around her. “Uh-uh. I threw up. Can you snuggle me?”

His little girl. He presses his nose to her head and smells the Scully smell of her warm scalp.

She sniffles.

“Do you need a tissue, sweetie?” Scully asks.

“No.” Emily wipes her nose on Mulder’s shirt, nuzzling close. “Can I go home now?”

“I’ll take you guys home soon.” Mulder rolls a strand of Em’s hair between his thumb and index finger until she swats his hand away. “I’ve got a root beer float with your name on it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continued in Ch. 7 pt. ii


	8. Chapter 7 pt. ii

_Scully gets the flu_

Mulder moves Emily’s car seat from Scully’s backseat to his. The boys will pick up Scully’s car in the morning. He gathers Scully at the ER entrance, where she stands in an orange streetlight holding Emily, asleep, across her front. Briefcase at her feet. Emily at four is still very nearly too tall for Scully to carry. Scully’s hair blows in a cold wind and gets caught in her lipstick. He takes them home.

The next day is Saturday. Mulder moves the television into Scully’s bedroom. Emily rests in the very middle of the bed like a queen, reclined against pillows and flanked by two dolls on either side. Scully cuddles with her all day long, both of them in pajamas, watching the version of _Annie_ with Carol Burnett once and then twice. Mulder brings them peanut butter sandwiches in Wonderbread triangles, with no crusts. Scully gives him a look. He makes rootbeer floats indeed, after lunch, just like he promised, though Emily with her upset tummy sticks mostly to the frothy soda bubbles on top.

In the afternoon, Scully scratches Emily’s back as Mulder tells the story of Big Blue—and of the great ugly monster’s best friend, a little red dog who loved him well. Emily falls asleep. They all fall asleep. They wake at seven for two cans of chicken noodle. They watch _The Wizard of Oz_ together, and because they have seen it so many times, they pick parts. _Mommy, be Glinda. Mulder, be Scarecrow. Mulder, do the wicked witch._

“It means a lot to me,” Scully tells him softly, in the kitchen, long after Emily has fallen asleep. Her eyes look glassy. “How much you care for her.”

“I think that’s an understatement,” he says, and smiles at her, earnest, because of the two of them together are like the nervous old aunts he remembers from early childhood, orbiting Emily like moons. Scully contemplates the dirty plate in her hands.

“Here.” He takes it from her, cups her cheek for a moment. “You go on to bed. Let me get that.”

“Thanks.” Her eyelashes brush his palm when she blinks.

“Is it okay if I crash on the couch?”

She nods. Her voice is breathy. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

-

He wakes up to a groan. The sound of the tap. The light from Scully’s bathroom coming through the open bedroom door, down the hall.

He finds her on her knees in front of the toilet. She looks up at him with a glare.

“You got what Em has, huh?”

“ _No_.” She retches.

“Alright.” When he sits to join her on the bath mat, his knees crack. He rubs her back. “It’s alright, Scully.”

“C’n you get me a hair clip?”

He does her one better and clasps it for her as she hangs over the porcelain bowl, panting. He readies a washcloth. When she sits back on her heels, she wipes her face.

“You should go home,” she tells him, with the calm expression Scully gets after having practiced her argument. “You don’t want to be sick too.”

“I got my flu shot.”

She shrugs.

“Can I get you anything?”

She shakes her head.

“I’ll run to the pharmacy as soon as it opens. In the meantime—here, take this. Put this on.” He gets her robe from its hook on the door. She looks cold. “In the meantime, let me run you a bath.”

“Mulder—“

The _glug glug glug_ of water in the bathtub swallows her protest.

She whispers, harsh. “ _Mulder!_ ”

He turns it off.

“I’m fine,” she tells him before he asks. She doesn’t really meet his eyes. Her teeth chatter. “I feel fine. My stomach—I just, I feel just fine. I just want to go check on Emily. Why don’t you go, and I’ll call you when we’re feeling better.” She sways as she stands and Mulder stops her in her tracks, steers her to sit on the toilet seat.

“ _Scully_ ,” he whispers, hovering close. “ _Dearest_. I think you’re sick.”

She shakes her head. “M’fine.”

“You have a fever.”

“I can handle it,” she tells him, quiet.

He thumbs her cheek. “That is absolutely true. But I’ll do it for you.”

“I’ll do it myself.” Her eyes are suddenly furious, determined. “I’m the one who has to raise Emily alone _and I have to do it myself!_ ”

She swats him away. Then she sits with her mouth open, surprised at having yelled at him.

Mulder stares at her. And stares at her. “Is that really what you think, Dana?”

Silence.

“ _Really?_ ”

His knees crack when he stands up again.

-

When he comes back, she’s crying. Sniffling into the back of her hand on the floor. She looks up at him pathetically.

“Here.” He joins her on the tile, handing her a glass of water. “Drink this.”

She sniffs. “Thought you left.”

He takes the glass from her when she’s finished. “Not a chance.”

She seems to recognize he’s thinking, and she watches his profile in silence, waiting for him to speak.

“You know, Scully,” he begins, “I don’t know if I’ve… given you the wrong impression, or if I haven’t been clear, but—“

“You haven’t,” she interrupts him. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Mulder. I’m just… feeling sorry for myself. Thank you so much for your help. Of course you want to help. I know you love Emily more than anything.”

“Well.” He smiles a little, tossing his arm along the lip of the bathtub to gather her close. She comes easily, small head against his shoulder. Perhaps this is it. “The thing is, Scully, that’s not entirely true.”


	9. Chapter 8

_Mulder’s Valentine_  

“Hi,” Mulder says to the young woman in clogs and a long corduroy skirt who greets him at the door—likely Ms. Liza, Emily’s favorite teacher, given her description. (“She’s pretty. She has a braid.”) “I’m here to pick up my Valentine. Emily Scully.” He wiggles the pink roses behind his back, scanning the bright classroom for his favorite little face.

Ms. Presumably Liza grins. “Emily,” she calls over her shoulder. “Your daddy’s here.”

And perhaps it was a just a slip-up—this sunny twentysomething impressed by his bouquet, distracted, forgetting the rules: that Emily Scully didn’t have a daddy, but a Mulder who picked her up from school.

Yet Mulder is struck still, nervous. Apprehensive, for what if Emily is confused—upset by such a verbal imposition on her old life, on her memories of that other man who once held her hand, kissed her bruised knees. (Though Marshall Sim had never kissed a bruised knee, they would learn later, when Emily grew older. Not once.)

But Emily is not confused, not in the least. In fact she shoots up from her corner of the play rug, picture book abandoned, to barrel beyond Liza and into his knees.

“Mulder!” She grabs hold of his khaki-clad leg.

“Hi,” he chuckles, and strokes her fine, staticky hair. “You wanna get your backpack? I can carry it for you.” He reveals his flowers. “I gotcha a little something.”


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of Ch. 4

_We’re in our underwear, it’s the amazingest_

“Mommy!” Emily tugs Mulder into the master bedroom where Scully sits up in bed and blinks, bleary, at the interruption. “Mulder’s still here! It’s the amazingest! I found him in the bathroom! We’re in our underwear!”

Scully covers her bare breasts with the duvet and, behind Emily’s back, Mulder reaches down to ball up his discarded t-shirt and toss it to her—a smooth pass from center field. As Emily climbs up toward the pillows, Scully slips the shirt on. She regards Mulder with a secret smile as Emily settles in her arms. Last night they loved each other. He stands long and lean in his boxers, tentative come daylight, wavering like the branch of the sweetgum tree out her window.

She holds out her hand and flexes it, reaching for him. _Come on_ , she wants him to know. _You’re invited too_.

He flops onto his belly on the other side of Emily. When he lands, they bounce. As Mulder gathers a pillow under his chin, Emily climbs on his back, winds little arms around his neck, and lays her cheek against his muscled shoulder. This is how they play “Little monkey.” Scully smoothes her hair.

“Mm.” Emily closes her eyes. “Tickle my head, please.”

-

Mulder’s little monkey insists on being carried into the kitchen for breakfast, and insists on helping with pancakes from the “daddy” monkey’s back, at which Scully smiles tightly.

 _It’s fine_ , Mulder mouths to assure her. But as Scully pushes breakfast around her plate, she ruminates.

One night in Mommy’s bed does not a daddy monkey guarantee. 

They are whizzing by boundaries so quickly she can no longer remember them clearly.

Sometimes, from inside the speeding car, she experiences some optical illusion by which the trees along the road spin like tops, then break off at the elbow and collapse.

 _Emily will be pleased_ , she’d told Mulder last night, nude in his arms, sated in the afterglow. The world spun fast, but she’d felt balanced. Now she feels uneasy.

“Em,” Mulder says, “how ‘bout we go see the cherry blossoms today? Would you like that?”

“Yes!” Emily shouts. “Yes!”

“Hm?” Scully asks, resurfacing. “Where are we going?”

-

Mulder carries Em’s little spring windbreaker over his arm when, from jumping at the pigeons, her head grows hot and sweaty. They have hot dogs for lunch, munching and looking out like sailors across the Tidal Basin. A black lab comes to lick a splotch of mustard from the toe of Emily’s sneaker.

“Mulder, did you know me and Mommy want a puppy?” she asks.

“I did.” Mulder’s been telling Scully _You’re in big trouble_ about that puppy Emily wants.

Scully doles each of them a paper napkin, then wipes Emily’s chin herself.

“Will you help us walk him? We want a big one, and big ones hafta walk really far. And you’re fast.”

“Oh, _yeah_ ,” Mulder says easily, draping his arm along the back of their bench. “I’ll walk that guy all over town. Of course.” Scully’s heartbeat slows. Last night they loved each other. 

As they return to the car, Scully watches a toddler girl across the street trip on the pavement. The baby cries, and her father picks her up.

“Mulder, pick me up,” Emily asks, having followed Scully’s gaze. “Pick me up, please?”

-

“We have to talk to her,” Scully says finally, later that night on the phone. All through her bath, Emily’d asked questions: _Was the daddy in the parking lot a nice daddy_ and _Did you and Mulder kiss_ and _Is he going to be here when I wake up in the morning_. It gave her a stomach ache to think of all that love in Emily’s heart, and of _should things go wrong_ , and of distinct sorts of daddies—kind and unkind.

“The monk?” Mulder asks, meaning young monkey Emily Scully. “She’s fine. I think she was happy as a clam to see me in the bathroom this morning. She thinks the whole thing’s a party.”

“Mulder,” Scully says softly, sadly. “Of course she was happy.”

Oh. “A little too happy?”

“I think we should be careful,” Scully sighs. “To help her manage expectations.”

His heart sinks. He thought— “Should I be managing _my_ expectations, Scully?”

She closes her eyes. In the kitchen, the dishwasher beeps, having completed its cycle.

“No,” she whispers honestly. “I’m—” She sniffs. “I’m having a hard time, myself.”

“Well.” She hears him smile. “You’re the pinnacle, baby.”

Her “Thank you” is a whisper.

“We can talk to her whenever you want,” he says. “A real sit-down. When a Mulder and a Scully love each other very much…”

“You know I do,” she admits, shifting, switching the phone to her other ear to pick her cuticle. “And Emily does.”

Rather urgently, she continues.

“I meant everything I said—” _Emily will be pleased_ and O _h, I could stay here forever_ and _I really can’t do it without you, Mulder, I don’t think I can_. “I’m afraid of how much I meant it.”

“Come on.” He speaks soft like a morning in bed and the sun over the Tidal Basin. “Don’t be afraid, cherry blossom.”

It is so tender she winces, lips parted, eyes slipped shut. “Alright.”

“We’ll talk to her,” Mulder promises.

“Okay.” Scully’s cuticle begins to bleed, and she presses her thumb to her mouth.

“Sleep well, Scully.”

She hums, imagines a family of little monkeys cuddling safe in the sweetgum branches on a Georgetown street. “Sleep well.”


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Self-harm/character death (Kitsunegari), suggested abuse….?

January 1998

_She’s making me do this._

_Mulder, make her stop, I can’t help myself._

And the way she looked so small her coat. And her high heels clicking on the concrete.

_Mulder, make her stop._

The gun and her hand trembling because the gun was heavy.

_Mulder_.

And then there was no more of Scully’s voice but the recollection of her terrified whine as gun met temple. Scully said once, a bullet travels through the body faster than the rate at which your tissues can tear. It was gone, spit out the other side of her head, before her brain accommodated it. With her prefrontal cortex went the pain, and then only a cavity.

The cavern made by bullet through brain matter, she said, is ten times the diameter of the original disruption.

She would not have remembered the event, his raw screams—“ _No_ ,” and her name, over and over—because so took the shot her hippocampus, but even that mercy—or final injustice—did not matter. In a fraction of a second she was dead.

He yelped, jumped. Like he hadn’t expected her to really do it. He was squeamish about blood.

Then he ran to her. Her right knee was bent like the handle on a teacup. She looked small.

The diameter of her loss was ten times the size of her—a hundred times.

He curled around her like an unreasonable child, having fallen hard to his knees on the concrete. When he lifted her to clutch their chests together her head hung limp. (Or, what of it was left. As he cupped her hard skull in his palm to put her forehead to his shoulder, he saw there was no forehead, but a bloody mouth of brain matter in its place. He screamed and cried and almost dropped her as he recoiled, then grabbed her back against him.)

A month ago he was indignant that she could possibly leave him in order to parent a child. _How could she_ , he’d thought, feeling betrayed. It had been a terrible thought, an ugly one. And he was too ashamed to vocalize it. _Only what has to will change, Mulder_ , Scully had promised him anyway, softly, squeezing his hand in thanks in the marble hall of the San Diego Central Courthouse before he’d testified to her character. Her reassurance made him feel worse; she would never truly leave him. How reductive of their friendship to think so.

But he had been wrong. How reductive to think he could ever truly know her. Surely part of her, in that courthouse, was already gone. He held her in his arms, but he had let her get so far away.

_Scully_ , he moaned. Then louder. This time he punched the concrete with his free hand. For weeks his knuckle would be swollen with a boxer’s break.

_Why, Scully_ , he wanted to know. Wanted her to rise and tell him. _Why. Why. Why._

That was how she found him. Rocking the body of Linda Bowman, _why why why_.

-

“Dana.” Emily blinked up at her placidly, pulling on her pant leg. “There’s a man here.”

Dana cast her eyes beyond the dining room table, to Mulder on the couch, and turned off the sink. “Em, you know Mulder. You saw us come in.”

And she had, standing warily in the mouth of the hallway in her hooded bath towel as Scully ushered Mulder inside an hour ago, one of his arms slung over her shoulders to keep him upright. He’d been cold and sweaty and she’d pressed him to the couch, got him a glass of water, pet his sweet face. Emily watched. Maggie watched.

“Scully,” Mulder tried to protest when he noticed their audience, but his teeth chattered.

“Shh.” She knelt by his head and kissed his forehead sternly. She handed him a pill and the water glass. “Take this,” she said, and he made a face, and she raised her eyebrows to challenge the face, and he took the pill. She smoothed his hair.

“We need to X-ray your hand.” It was swollen and scraped.

“Tomorrow,” he begged, though his voice sunk in his throat.

“Lie down.”

“Sorry.” He was hoarse. “You don’t have to do this.”

Even still he was terrified, shaking.

“Shh.” She kept smoothing. Fixing him and fixing him. He needed a haircut.

“Be still,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

He closed his eyes.

Like before, her comfort brought a rush of shame. And then he was asleep.

“He has his shoes on,” Emily pointed out, because no shoes on the couch.

“That’s okay.” Scully bent to pick her daughter up. “Bedtime for you, huh?”

-

Emily’s nightlight made her white bed with its white sheets glow pink. When she closed her eyes and sucked her thumb, she looked like a little cherub.

“Did Mulder have a bad day?” she asked around the finger in her mouth.

“Yes,” Scully said, tucking Emily’s blankets around her. “We don’t want him to sleep alone at his house.”

Emily considered this, drawing her eyebrows together.

“What about his mom?”

“Hm?”

“Where does she live?” Where does she live if not in Mulder’s house with Mulder, Emily meant. For mothers should be with their children especially on bad days.

There was the quiet chuff of Scully’s laugh. “She lives in Connecticut,” Scully explained. “So Mulder needs us instead. Does that sound good?”

“Yeah.” Emily nuzzled Scully’s hand as it brushed her cheek. “You’re nice.”

Scully tickled her tummy, kissed her temple. “ _You’re_ nice.”

Emily giggled. They looked at each other in dim pink light, falling in love.

“Goodnight, sweet girl,” Scully whispered.

Emily smiled bashfully, ducking her chin. It was the pleased, self-satisfied smile Scully would come to associate with illicit dessert; praised artwork and intellect; the touch of her blush brush to Emily’s cheeks some mornings, so they could be twins— _Very pretty._

-

Mulder woke to a stiff neck and the sensation of being watched. Backlit by muted WWE, Emily sat on the rug, looking at him up close. There were circles under her owlish eyes. She was not yet sleeping well, Scully said recently. Sometimes Emily wandered the strange new apartment until she fell asleep, catlike, someplace uncommon—by the wicker basket of magazines beside the armchair. Under the coffee table.

For a moment they stared. _Here is you and me_ , they thought. _Somewhere together._

“Hi Emily,” Mulder whispered finally.

Emily jumped, like she had not expected him to speak, and looked toward the hall as if Scully might appear to mediate between them.

When Scully did not appear, she drew her knees to her chest and tucked them unceremoniously under her nightgown. Then she wrapped her arms around her shins.

“You okay?” Mulder asked.

Emily swallowed. She was a shy kid. The most he’d heard her laugh was a month ago, on her last weekend in California before Scully returned with her to DC. Scully took her swimming in the hotel pool. He’d watched from a lounge chair, still in his suit, as they splashed and spun slow circles. Scully demonstrated a handstand, and for how long she could hold her breath. She came up for air when Emily grew panicked, reaching beneath to surface to touch her head and snap her goggle strap. _Dana come back_ , he remembered, and the way her little face grew red and angry at Scully’s trick. _Come back!_ But when Scully emerged, goggles askew, Emily pushed her away.

_Hey!_ Scully grabbed her chubby arm gently but seriously, and so Emily would not push off her spot on the pool steps, dunking herself by accident. _We do not push_. Then a silly pout, and the invitation of a mother’s open arms: _Don’t you wanna float with me?_

They floated til they pruned.

In the living room Emily still regarded him warily, as if she was the one being watched.

“Do you need something?” he asked.

She sucked her bottom lip beneath two front teeth, thinking. “Were you sleeping?”

At the old house she would hear her parents getting loud. She would hear _Stop! Stop!_ She would go down the hall, go to their room, and her daddy would be a dark shadow beyond the door. She could hear him breathing like a dog growls. Her mother would be surprised. Her face looked funny. _Emily. What are you doing up, sweetheart? Everybody’s sleeping._ But they weren’t.

“Yeah,” Mulder said. “Was I snoring?”

At that Emily smiled. She shook her head. Then she looked back at the television, where one woman in a bikini top threw another woman in a bikini top onto the mat. “Why is she mad?”

Mulder grinned. “She’s not,” he said. “They’re just pretending. For fun. Like a dance.”

“Oh.” Emily wiped her nose with the back of her wrist. “Can I sit with you?”

“Sure, yeah.” Mulder tried to be casual. “Sure.” He swung his legs down in front of him, making room for Emily to climb up, one knee after the other. She sat close, on the center cushion’s very center, instead of far away.

On TV the referee named a winner—the one in the pink rhinestone bra, rather than the blue—and she held up her glistening, muscled arms to roar.

“Her shirt is pretty,” Emily observed. “Do you want to hold hands?”

 


End file.
